Major Threats and Conservation Record

Mexico is a huge country (one of the world's 15 largest) with a big population
(96 million in 1996) growing at a fast pace (between 2% and 3% annually, due to
double within 24 to 34 years). There are major environmental threats, chiefly
destruction of natural habitats, and the country has had, until very recently, a
poor environmental record and outlook. Suffering from widespread poverty,
governmental neglect and corruption, and little organized local interest in
conservation, Mexico for most of its history has been a state where business and
agricultural interests held nearly absolute power over development decisions and
the uses of natural resources. Economic growth, at almost any cost, was the
mantra, everyone's chief concern; conservation was a very low priority for
business, government, and most citizens alike. One indication: Mexico did not
join the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), the
chief international agreement to stop trade in threatened and endangered plants
and animals, in effect since 1975, until 1991, the last Latin American nation to
do so. During the past few years, some big changes have taken place. Triggering
growing environmental awareness in the country have been increasing education,
local and international publicity over Mexico's pollution levels and poor
environmental record, the gradual weakening of the formerly omnipotent
Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), and the emergence of a sizable middle
class who vacation in the countryside and take vocal interests in living healthy
lives. The dramatic decline in environmental quality has been noticed, and
people and government have begun steps to reverse the decline.

Mexico has a host of environmental problems, including significant chemical
pollution from factory discharges and waste dumping, but the main threat to its
biodiversity probably stems from deforestation and other natural habitat losses.
Forest habitat is lost for a number of reasons. The major factor is land use -
land is cleared for crop agriculture, cattle grazing, human colonization, and for
business development. A rapidly multiplying human population and economic growth
propels and constantly increases these uses. (For instance, currently there is
explosive population growth among the Yucatan Mayan people, owing to high birth
rate, low infant mortality rate, and high immigration rate - mostly young people
arriving to seek jobs in Cancun.) Other causes of forest loss are
over-exploitation for timber and fuelwood, and natural agents such as fire and
disease. The use of trees as fuel for heating and cooking takes an especially
heavy toll on forests. In Oaxaca, for instance, it's estimated that each family
burns on average about 12 kg (26 lbs) of wood per day. Very few forested areas
of Mexico are free from human disturbance; in fact, most forests contain
scattered settlements whose residents are usually very poor and who still
practice age-old slash-and-burn agriculture. The rate of forest loss, one of the
highest in the world, is officially estimated at anywhere between 300,000 and
400,000 hectares (740,000 to one million acres) per year, but is actually higher
- perhaps double these estimates. (Reforestation rates average less than 100,000
hectares, or 250,000 acres, per year.) Forests in some regions are destroyed
faster than others, for instance, over half the forest cover in the Selva
Lacandona region has been lost since 1980 (see below).

Compounding the ongoing threat to its forests and other natural habitats is the
dawning realization that Mexico is a treasure trove of biodiversity and a center
of endemic species - those that occur only in one place; destroy them in Mexico
and they will be extinct. During the 1980s and early 1990s, as an initial,
necessary step for conservation, Mexico underwent surveys and censuses of much of
its biodiversity. The results are in, and they are stunning. Mexico, it turns
out, probably holds more species of plants and animals than any other country on
earth but two. For instance, there are some 30,000 plant species, of which
between 50% and 60% are endemic; 49 species of pines (more than half the world's
total); 450 mammals (Brazil, which is more than twice Mexico's size has only 394
mammals); about 1000 birds, 693 reptiles; 285 amphibians, and more than 2000
fish. As of the mid-1990s, many species were known to be already threatened: 64
mammals, 36 birds, 18 reptiles, 3 amphibians, and about 85 fish.

Wildlife surveys, in addition to identifying and counting species, note where
they are located and in which habitat types they occur, so that biologists can
target and prioritize geographic regions and habitats for conservation attention.
That is, they can determine which habitat types are most threatened and where,
and which ones, based on their biodiversity, are most worth trying to save. For
instance, the last large expanse of virgin tropical forest in North America,
Chiapas' Selva Lacandona (the Lacandon Jungle), near Mexico's border with
Guatemala, with its high level of biodiversity, has now become a top conservation
priority for Mexico and for international conservation organizations. Likewise,
wetland areas along the Yucatan Peninsula's coasts were recognized for their
biodiversity holdings and identified as critical migratory bird stop-over habitat
and as a result, recently were given given protection as biosphere reserves.
Overall, based on its degree and rate of habitat loss and the amount of
biodiversity it holds, Mexico is now considered one of the 15 most
environmentally threatened places in the world.

As I said above, environmental concern is growing in Mexico and corrective
actions increasing. International publicity about Mexico's pollution problems
has helped. Drawing most interest probably is the USA/Mexico border region,
where for decades USA companies and others set up industrial and manufacturing
plants on the Mexico side to take advantage of lax Mexican environmental
regulations and cheap labor costs, while at the same time maintaining close
access to USA markets. The practice took on special significance to
international media when it was realized that dumping wastes into northern
Mexican rivers and bays, for instance, polluted not just Mexico but adjacent
regions of the USA as well. Recent trade deals among North American nations
(NAFTA, etc.) have associated environmental provisions - side agreements - that
obligate signatory nations to regulate relevant industry to reduce pollution.
Grass-roots support in Mexico for conservation and against rampant development is
also growing. A recent golf resort development within easy driving distance of
Mexico City, for use of the city's elite, which in the recent past would have
been built easily and quickly, was held up because local townspeople did not want
their wild countryside marred by development. This activism is a new way of
doing things for Mexico and speaks well for its future conservation efforts.
There is a new Green Party, but it garnered less than 1% of the vote in mid-1990s
national elections.

In 1996, the new government of President Ernesto Zedillo consolidated several
ecology and wildlife services to form a new Secretariat of the Environment,
Natural Resources, and Fisheries (SEMARNAP) and staffed it with respected
enviromentalists. Most observers believe this reorganization represents a
sincere effort to begin addressing the nation's need for strong environmental
protection and conservation. However, as in most other nations of Latin America,
even when public atmosphere and governmental good-will exist for conservation,
necessary funds are usually lacking. In relatively poor countries (Mexico's per
capita gross domestic product in 1994 was US$ 7900), where there is always
critical need for increased spending for roads, public health, and education,
money for conservation is always hard to find. Parks and reserves can be
established with the stroke of a pen, but often they are protected reserves in
name only. There are no funds to hire the managers and wardens to patrol and
protect the habitats and wildlife. Sometimes a single guard or caretaker is
responsible for overseeing vast tracts of land, and can do little to prevent
habitat destruction and wildlife poaching.

Mexico has been slow to realize that natural habitats attract capital, and that
wild habitats have, to some degree, the capacity to help save themselves, through
ecotourism. But efforts are underway now by international and local non-profit
conservation organizations and by state and federal governments to use ecotourism
to help preserve some of Mexico's ecological treasures.

Conservation Programs and Ecotourism

Biosphere Reserves

Chief among Mexico's conservation efforts must be its establishment of reserves
to protect areas with threatened or fragile habitats and the plants and animals
they contain. The country has long had several protected areas, but the pace of
declaring reserves, especially larger ones with critical, high-biodiversity
habitats, significantly quickened during the 1980s and 1990s, as the
deteriorating nature of Mexico's last wild areas became known. As of this
writing, Mexico has more than 70 protected areas that, in total, make up about 3%
of the national territory. Many of these protected lands are smaller parcels in
the form of national parks (defined by Mexico as areas with special historical,
scientific, ecological, or aesthetic value) and natural monuments (areas with
unique natural beauty or scientific value), but most of the total area is
included within large wild zones known internationally as biosphere reserves.

The first biosphere reserves were designated in 1976 and, as of 1997, there were
337 of them in 85 countries, covering 200 million hectares (500 million acres).
Mexico now has about 10 biosphere reserves, defined by the United Nations
scientific arm (UNESCO) as protected areas, generally larger than 10,000 hectares
(24,700 acres), that contain one or more important biological zones and that
include significant pristine, or wilderness, areas, untouched by people. Smaller
protected areas (less than 10,000 hectares, or 24,700 acres) that meet most of
the requirements of biosphere reserves, are known as special biosphere reserves,
and Mexico also has more than 10 of these (for example, Ria Celestún and Ria
Lagartos reserves). Mexico's biosphere reserves are generally acknowledged to be
its best-protected lands. The purpose of biosphere reserves, after 20 years of
trial and error learning, has evolved to be three-fold: to conserve biological
and cultural diversity; to develop and serve as models for sustainable land use;
and to provide areas for environmental research, monitoring, training, education,
and tourism.

Biosphere reserves are structured in a special way to facilitate these goals.
They contain one or more core or nuclear zones, true wilderness areas designated
for the strongest degree of long-term conservation protection; only research
relevant to conservation and perhaps limited, low-impact tourism are allowed in
these zones. Surrounding the core zones are buffer zones, meant to protect the
core from human intrusion and in which limited activities relevant to
conservation are permitted, such as education, research, ecotourism,
non-destructive recreation, and low-impact uses of natural resouces. Surrounding
or adjacent to buffer zones are transition zones, where local communities may
live and, usually with training from conservation agencies, engage in sustainable
uses of natural resources. (Sustainable means using plants and animals in ways
that are economically profitable for the local economy yet not ecologically
harmful; use, in other words, that will not lead to significant ecosystem damage
or to decline in biodiversity.)

A good example of how one of these reserves works and how local and international
conservation organizations play major roles, can be found in the Yucatan
Peninsula's Calakmul Biosphere Reserve. This large reserve on Mexico's southern
border is continuous with the Guatemala's Maya Biosphere Reserve; it's primary
mission is to preserve the biodiversity contained within this largest patch of
remaining tropical forest north of the Amazon region. At least 350 bird species
occur here, as do about 100 mammals and more than 50 reptiles and amphibians.
Calakmul, named for the ancient city of the same name whose ruins still exist in
the southern part of the reserve, consists of two large core zones surrounded by
buffer/transition zones made up of ejidos (lands held communally by local
villages; see below) and their associated forest reserves.

The most important conservation organization working today in the Yucatan
Peninsula and, in particular, to protect Calakmul and conserve its biodiversity,
is Pronatura Yucatan, a Mexican group with headquarters in Merida. (Pronatura
does the hands on work but receives financial and other assistance from
organizations such as The Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, and the former
US Agency for International Development.) About 15,000 people live in and around
Calakmul and make their livings there, often by means that are environmentally
harmful. The biggest problem is deforestation, primarily caused by traditional
slash-and-burn farming and logging for timber. Protecting these critical forests
lies not in simply establishing a reserve and then telling residents they can no
longer use the natural resources they depend on. That kind of treatment,
experience shows, leads only to local resentment and lack of compliance with
conservation rules. Rather, most modern conservation organizations, such as
Pronatura, believe that the way to protect remaining forests and biodiversity in
core areas is to work with local people in surrounding zones so that they, too,
have strong incentives to preserve wild habitats. In other words, if local
residents can be taught to manage their forests in sustainable ways, it will be
better in the long run for the local people - it will improve their lives - and
also better for conservation.

So what, exactly, does Pronatura do in Calakmul? In a phrase, lots of things -
some of which, at first, you might not imagine are strongly related to
conservation of trees, birds, and bugs. But most are aimed at improving the
lives of local residents who live in or near the reserve so that their dependence
on harmful environmental practices is reduced. For instance, Pronatura conducts
workshops in many villages in environmental education (composting, gardening, hog
farming, etc.), reproductive health and family planning, and traditional medicine
(with help from community experts); they train villagers for and help with
rainwater catchment projects (lack of water during dry season is a major
community problem) and infrastructure improvements (putting up signs, etc.).
Their major emphasis, however, is on training local people in agro-ecology
projects - teaching them to support themselves in environmentally-friendly ways.
One of the main projects at Calakmul is teaching people to plant crops of legumes
- plants such as beans that, as they grow, tend to put nutrients back into soils.
These crops actually improve soils so that the same fields can be used year
after year. Repeated use means that new fields do not have to be cleared every
few years from the forest when soils become nutrient-poor (the traditional
slash-and-burn method). Another major agro-ecology project pursued now in
Calakmul is honey production. More than 120 individual producers in about 14
villages are keeping bee hives and harvesting honey, which is marketed as Jungle
Honey. For the time and effort investment, honey production is quite profitable
(after all, the insects making the stuff work for below minimum-wage). It has
been quite successful of late, keeps people working all year (whereas much local
employment is only seasonal) and, from a conservation perspective, is truly an
eco-friendly industry. Pronatura helps in the training aspects of honey
production (finding local experts to give workshops on bee-keeping and working
with aggressive Africanized honeybees, helping to obtain materials, and getting
people started), but not in the commercial aspects - local people market their
own product.

In the end, it will probably be huge biosphere reserves in Mexico and other
countries - where both core wilderness areas and large buffer zones enjoy high
degrees of protection - that will offer many species their best chances of
survival. As in any new discipline, the scientific field of conservation biology
is rife with controversies, but there is general agreement that preserving large
wild areas is probably the only way to save many species from rapid extinction.
For instance, viable populations of larger mammals, such as howler and spider
monkeys, white-lipped peccaries, and tapirs (Plates 73, 80) cannot possibly be
successful in small patches of forest.

Ecotourism

Aside from moving all people from the earth, no conservation method is likely to
be perfect - they all have pluses and minuses. Ecotourism is no exception, and I
mention some negatives at the end of the chapter. However, on balance, most
conservationists agree that ecotourism can be used successfully to help preserve
many wild habitats. Indeed, conservation organizations in southern Mexico are
increasingly fostering ecotourism with the hope that visits to remote sites by
tourists, and the economic surge they bring, can help preserve those sites. One
of the Yucatan Peninsula's early efforts at ecotourism, visits to the Sian Ka'an
Biosphere Reserve, led by the Amigos de Sian Ka'an organization, is detailed
elsewhere in the book. Ecotourism in the remote Calakmul Biosphere Reserve is
beginning - the conservation agency Pronatura Yucatan, in fact, recently started
training local guides. Pronatura, again with technical advice and financial
assistance from orgazinations such as The Nature Conservancy, also has been
instrumental in helping two communities on the peninsula's coast establish
ecotourism businesses. In both Rio Lagartos and Celestún, Pronatura worked with
the local communities to establish boat tours for visitors to see flamingos and
other wildlife inhabiting the biosphere reserves that surround these two towns.
In addition to businesses relating to boat tours, the organization works with
other sections of the communities to promote eco-friendly cottage industries.
For instance, in the town of Celestún, a women's group was organized that now
runs a successful small business gathering ocean shells, making from them
household objects such as napkin holders, and selling them in the town plaza.
Ria Lagartos and Ria Celestún Special Biosphere Reserves protect important
wetlands, habitat for many water-associated birds and other kinds of animals. In
fact, owing to its critical function as bird nesting habitat and also wintering
habitat and stopover habitat for many migratory birds, and to the high number of
threatened species it contains, Ria Lagartos in 1986 was placed on the
international "RAMSAR" list of essential wetlands (as Mexico's only entry). The
list is the result of the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance,
signed in Ramsar, Iran in 1971; it prioritizes the world's wetlands for
conservation purposes.

So ecotourism on the Yucatan Peninsula started only recently and is growing
slowly. Its biggest obstacle may be that local governments, especially in
Quintana Roo and Yucatan states, are, so far, doing little in the way of
promotion (Campeche is a bit more on the ball, and has even collaborated with
Pronatura in training nature guides). Also, SEMARNAP, the federal agency now
charged with protecting natural resources, is cautious about ecotourism, probably
because they know that if it is not handled correctly, it can lead to
over-visitation of sites and environmental damage.

Chiapas is perhaps a bit behind even the Yucatan Peninsula in ecotourism
development because of the remoteness of some of it's attractions and its recent
political unrest. Nonetheless, Chiapas now has several fantastic eco-attractions
and is beginning to promote them and render more of them reachable by ordinary
people. The Chiapas state government appears to support ecotourism strongly, and
conservation organizations are increasingly using ecotourism in the state to try
to save wilderness areas. Conservation International (CI), for instance, is one
agency heavily involved with trying preserve the Selva Lacandona (Lacandon
jungle) ecosystem that lies in northeast Chiapas near the Guatemalan border. The
region is irreplaceable from a biodiversity perspective. At about 1.8 million
hectares (4.5 million acres), the Selva Lacandona contains about 30% of all
animal and 20% of all plant species found in Mexico, and represents the last
large remaining tract of North American tropical rainforest. But this wonderful
wild region is under attack by an increasing human population and associated
deforestation; it's estimated that half the forest has been cleared since 1980.
Looking at a satellite image of the area is sobering and slightly eerie: On the
Guatemalan side of the Usumacinta River is the unbroken greenery of virgin
tropical rainforest, a tribute to the remoteness of the region and lack of roads
on the Guatemalan side of the border that prohibits access to settlers; on the
Mexican side however, where the Selva Lacandona is situated, are huge patches of
deforestation, the result of human penetration into the area after the Mexican
government pushed roads into the region for their military to patrol the border.

On paper, some of the Selva Lacandona is now protected, with the Montes Azules
Biosphere Reserve probably the best protected and most important part. But
protection on paper is not sufficient. Local residents, most often poor and
poorly-educated, must be convinced that wild areas are worth saving, and
ecotourism development is one way to do that. CI and other organizations work
with these local communities to help them create infrastructure for ecotourism.
They hold workshops to train local people in potential ecotourism activities such
as offering guide services, lodging, and transportation, and, fundamentally,
describing what tourists want from the experience of visiting the area. The most
successful outcome to date of these training activities are the wonderful tours
that now depart daily from Palenque for the remote Mayan ruin sites of Bonampak
and Yaxchilan. CI helped set up the organization for these tours, but local
people from the indigenous communities located around the archaeological sites
now run and profit from the tours. The success of the operation is evident:
other indigenous communities have begun asking how they, too, might participate
in ecotourism, and CI has been working to expand their success to other, even
more remote regions of the Selva Lacandona (for example, in the Laguna Miramar
region).

Ejidos, Conservation, and Ecotourism

One of the few acknowledged truths of ecotourism is that, if local people and
communities of modest means are to accept and support conservation measures and
new nature reserves, they should be informed and consulted during all phases of
the development process. For their continued support, local people should
benefit economically from a park, reserve, or ecotourism facility, but local
communities should also have a hand in the decision-making concerning the
development and maintenance of ecotourism sites. In southern Mexico,
complicating the ecotourism and conservation picture is the fact that
impoverished local people own or occupy most of the land. These people can be
divided into four main groups, and conservation agencies must sometimes work with
all of them to achieve conservation success: A community is a large group of
indigenous people that hold, as a group, huge chunks of tribal lands. The
Lacandon Community, for instance, with which Conservation International worked to
establish tours to the Bonampak and Yaxchilan Mayan sites, is composed of the
Lacandones, Choles, and Tzeltales peoples. An ejido (eh-HEE-doe) is a smaller
group, usually about 400 to 600 people, which owns a smaller parcel of communal
land, often, in total, about 50 hectares (125 acres) per person, but sometimes
much less. About 70% of Mexico's remaining forests are now owned by communities
and ejidos. A third kind of people who often must figure prominently in
conservation strategies are new immigrants - the many people who, for example,
recently fled into the Selva Lacandona region of Chiapas to escape the political
unrest in other parts of the state. New immigrants immediately begin cutting
trees for houses and fuelwood, and need jobs, and therefore, can have strong
impacts on forests. The fourth category of local people important for
conservation are private landowners. Land containing perhaps 20% of Mexico's
remaining forests is held by small landowners and, in larger pieces, by the
remnants of the hacienda system - the large pieces of Mexican real estate handed
out by the Spanish crown during colonial times as rewards for services rendered.
The attitudes of these different groups toward conservation depends on their use
of forest resources. The Lacandon people, for instance, actually live in the
jungle - it is their home - so they quickly understand the need for conservation.
They see the logging and burning of forests as threats to their very way of
life. But other groups, not so intimately tied to the forests, are not clear on
the need for conservation. Some ejidos, for example, may understand that there
is some money to made through ecotourism, but really don't understand or care
about the conservation implications of such activities. Conservation agencies
work with these communities to educate them about the need for conservation and
the relationship between ecotourism and conservation.

Ejidos themselves are increasingly offering ecotourism services. Inequitable
land ownership was a main cause of the Mexican Revolution early in the 20th
century; 90% or more of rural families at the time owned no land. Land
redistribution was enshrined in the post-revolution 1917 Constitution. Land was
confiscated mainly from the colonial haciendas and by 1981, nearly 100 million
hectares (2.5 million acres) had been distributed to more than 1.5 million
people. (Unfortunately, much of this land was of poor quality for agriculture.)
As a way to prevent lands from ever again becoming concentrated in the hands of a
few wealthy individuals, the ejido system was created. Each person was given
land to work in a collective agricultural unit. In addition, each ejido (made up
of several hundred people) was provided with large tracts of common land for use
of all people in the ejido for grazing livestock and for collecting forest
products - fuelwood, timber. (It is these associated forests lands held by
ejidos that are often important for conservation purposes). All ejido lands are
owned by the Mexican nation in perpetuity; they cannot be sold, and must be
returned if not worked. The ejido, however, is a self-governing land unit, a
cooperative with elected officials; it decides how best to use its lands and what
to do with profits from ejido agriculture and commerce (V. Halhead 1984). And
some ejidos, at the urging of conservation organizations, are turning to
ecotourism as a new, eco-friendly way to generate income.

Some of these ejidos are already operating rustic ecotourism lodges, and others
are in the planning stages. The ejido Tres Garantias in southern Quintana Roo
(located about 30 km, or 18 miles, south of Route 186, the main road that cuts
across the base of the Yucatan Peninsula) has set aside half its forested lands
as a nature reserve, built an enclosed camping hut with mosquito netting in the
middle of the jungle, and opened its doors to ecotravellers. For very reasonable
rates you can sleep there, get fed, and wander the lands and trails.
Conservation International has been working with the ejido Emiliano Zapata in the
Laguna Miramar region of the Selva Lacandona to initiate ecotourism. Laguna
Miramar is a large lake in a wilderness area in eastern Chiapas. Visitors camp
in a communal hut and spend their days exploring the lake, nature trails, and
nearby archaeological ruins. Eventually, Conservation International would like
to extend this kind of ejido-based ecotourism to the other sites in the Selva
Lacandona, such as the Laguna Ocotal area in the northern reaches of the Montes
Azules Biosphere Reserve. Another good example of ejidos participating in
ecotourism is the cloud forest trips to the El Triunfo Biosphere Reserve (p. x)
in southeastern Chiapas. Mexico's Institute of Natural History worked closely
with local ejidos (about 25 ejidos are located within the reserve's buffer zones)
to establish the tours, and members of ejidos work as guides, cooks, etc.
Similarly, the Institute of Natural History hopes to work with ejidos near the
new La Encrucijada Biosphere (or Ecological) Reserve on the Pacific in
southeastern Chiapas to open that site also to ecotourists.

Ecotourism is a kind of sustainable development and can certainly contribute to
conservation. But does ecotourism always help local economies and significantly
preserve visited habitats and wildlife? This question is important because
increasingly, the fostering of ecotourism is suggested by indigenous people in
developing nations, by the nations themselves, and by international conservation
organizations, as one of the best methods to preserve natural resources and
biodiversity almost anywhere that they are threatened. Many people who monitor
tourism - researchers and government officials - believe that in the rush to make
money from ecotourism, benefits are often overstated and problems ignored.

Many private companies purporting to be "ecotour" operators are "eco-" in name
only; they are interested solely in profits, and are not concerned about local
economies or the wild areas into which they take tourists. There is increasing
concern about monetary "leakage": despite attempts to keep most of the
ecotourist revenues in local destination economies, many of those dollars, more
than 50% by recent estimates, leak back to large urban areas of destination
countries and even to developed nations; relatively little actually is spent on
conservation. (In southern Mexico, ecotravellers can visit ejidos or take tours
operated by indigenous groups, thereby assuring that 100% of the fees charged go
to local people.) In some countries, ecotourism is an unstable source of local
employment and economic well-being. Tour bookings are heavily dependent on
seasonal trends, on the weather, on a country's political situation, and on
worldwide currency fluctuations. Finally, popularity as an ecotourism site may
inevitably lead to its failing. As ecotourism expands dramatically, sites that
are over-used and under-managed are damaged. Trails in forests gradually enlarge
and deepen, erosion occurs, crowds of people are incompatible with natural animal
behavior. A good example: the number of visitors to Ria Lagartos Biosphere
Reserve on the northern coast of the Yucantan Peninsula has been declining,
probably because the flamingos that are the primary attraction are increasingly
moving to other areas to escape tour boat harassment. Also, ecotourism's success
harms itself in another way: when any area becomes too popular, many travellers
wanting to experience truly wild areas and quiet solitude no longer want to go
there; that is, with increasing popularity, there is an inexorable deterioration
of the experience.

Thus, ecotourism is not a miracle cure-all for conservation; these days it is
understood to be a double-edged sword. Clearly, large numbers of people visiting
sites cannot help but have adverse impacts on those sites. But as long as
operators of the facilities are aware of negative impacts, careful management
practices can reduce damage. Leakage of ecotourist revenue away from the
habitats the money was meant to conserve is difficult to control, but some
proportion of the money does go for what it is intended and, with increased
awareness of the problem, perhaps that proportion can be made to grow.
Travellers themselves can take steps to ensure that their trips help rather than
hurt visited sites.